“We celebrate the New Year's Feast but once in all the year;
A Feast perpetual to me affords thy presence dear.
One day the roses hang in clusters thick upon the tree;
A never-failing crop of roses yield thy cheeks to me.
One day I gather violets by the bunch in gardens fair,
But violets by the sheaf are yielded by thy fragrant hair.
The wild narcissus for a single week the field adorns;
The bright narcissus of thine eye outlasts three hundred morns.
The wild narcissus must its freshness lose or vigil keep: *
To thy narcissus-eyes no difference waking makes or sleep.
Fragrant and fair the garden jasmine is in days of Spring,
But round thy hyacinths * the jasmine-scent doth ever cling.
Nay, surely from thy curls the hyacinths their perfume stole,
These are the druggist's stock-in-trade and those food for the soul.
Those from a ground of silver * spring, and these from heaps of stone;
Those crown a cypress-form, while these adorn some upland lone.
There is a garden-cypress which remains for ever green,
Yet by thy cypress-stature it appears uncouth and mean.”

Imámí was for some time patronized by Fakhru'l-Mulk of Khurásán, * who on one occasion submitted to him the following versified enquiry:*

“What says that master of the Law, chief scholar of our land,
Our guide in doctrine and belief, to this which we demand:
Suppose a cat at dead of night feloniously should steal
A cage of pigeons or of doves, and make therefrom a meal,
Would Retribution's Law revealed the owner justify
If he in vengeance for the birds should doom the cat to die?”

To this enquiry, Imámí answered as follows:

“A subtle question this indeed! The palate of the mind
Therein thy nature's fragrance fair and reason rare doth find!
No vengeance falls upon the cat, for nowhere hath implied
Our Prophet in his Holy Law that such is justified.
Have cats which hunt for birds less right than catkins * on the tree?
Their claws upon the branch they spread whene'er a bird they see.
So, if his own white arm he seeks to keep secure from pain,
Let him avoid with Pussy's blood his hand and arm to stain.
If he the pigeon seeks to save, the dove to keep alive,
To hang their cages out of reach he surely could contrive!”

Poetical interrogations of this sort seem to have been the fashion at this time, for certain people of Káshán addressed a similar versified question as to the respective merits of the poets Anwarí and Ẓahír of Fáryáb to Majdu'd-Dín Hamgar, and to this same question Imámí also thought good to reply in verse. The text and translation of this correspondence, including the question and the two answers, all in verse, are given in the Ta'ríkh-i-Guzída , * to which the curious reader is referred. Majdu'd-Dín Hamgar's reply contains the date when it was written, viz. the end of Rajab, 674 (Jan. 19, 1276), and both he and Imámí agree in preferring Anwarí to Ẓahír, a judgement in which nearly all competent critics will concur. Majdu'd-Dín's claim to prefer Imámí's poetry not only to his own but to Sa'dí's, on the other hand, cannot be taken seriously, and must have been prompted by some personal motive, such as a desire to please Imámí or to annoy Sa'dí. All Persian writers who have noticed this matter at all have expressed amazement at the view which Majdu'd-Dín Hamgar saw fit to advance; for in truth Imámí's poetry, so far as we can judge from the specimens given by Dawlat-sháh * and in the Átash-Kada * and the Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá, * has no special distinction or originality, while Sa'dí's claim to be reckoned among the half-dozen greatest poets of his country has never been disputed.

Majdu'd-Dín Hamgar was, according to the Ta'ríkh-i-Guzída , a native of Yazd, and a protégé of Bahá'u'd-Dín Majdu'd-Dín Hamgar Juwayní, the high-handed governor of Fárs, who died in 678/1279. * When the poet came from Yazd to Iṣfahán, he left his elderly wife behind him, but she soon followed him. News of her arrival was brought to the poet by one of his pupils, who said, “Good news! Your lady has alighted in the house.” “Good news,” replied Majdu'd-Dín, “would rather be that the house had alighted on her!” The lady, to whom this speech was reported, reproached her husband for his unkind words, quoting the quatrain of 'Umar Khayyám beginning:

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“Days changed to nights ere thou wert born, or I.”*

“Before me, perhaps,” replied Majdu'd-Dín, “but Heaven forbid that day and night should have existed before thee!”

According to Dawlatsháh, * Majdu'd-Dín Hamgar boasted descent from Núshírwán the Sásánian, and was on this account a somewhat privileged person at the courts which he frequented. To this alleged genealogy the poet alludes in the following verses: * <text in Arabic script omitted>

“My virtues all a cruel age hath made for me a bane;
My youthful blood the aged Sphere hath shed in grief and pain.
The envious Mercury * hath plucked the pen from out my hand,
The arching Heaven hath drawn a bow to smite me where I stand.
O Sphere, what would'st thou of me, a poor, bare-footed thing?
O Time, what seek'st thou from me, a bird with broken wing?
Make of the falcon's eyes a dish to satisfy the owl:
Make of the lion's thighs the food for which the jackals prowl.
In no wise like the noisy drum will I his blows bewail,
Although his lashes on my back descend as falls the flail.
O foot of trouble's elephant, prithee more gently press!
O hand of this ignoble Sphere, increase my dire distress!
Through tribulations bravely borne my heart hath grown more bright,
As mirrors gain by polishing in radiancy and light.
What time the rose-bush from the dust doth raise its flowering head,
The sapling of my luck (what luck!) hath withered and is dead.
My fault is this, that I am not from some base seed upgrown:
My crime is this, that noble is the pedigree I own.
The sons of Sásán, not Tigín, my ancestors I call;
I'm of the race of Kisrá, not the household of Inál. *
My verse is sweet and exquisite as union with the fair:
My pen in picture-painting hath the gifts of fancy rare.
No eye hath seen an impulse mean impede my bounty's flow:
The ear of no petitioner hath heard the answer ‘No!’
When youth is gone, from out the heart all love of play is cast:
And lustre fadeth from the sun which hath the zenith passed.”

Majdu'd-Dín Hamgar wrote poems in praise of Shamsu'd-Dín Muḥammad the Ṣáḥib-Díwán as well as of the Atábek Quatrains of Majd-i-Hamgar Sa'd b. Abú Bakr. Manuscripts of his poems are rare, but a fine old manuscript (Or. 3713) in the British Museum, transcribed in the years A.D. 1293-8 by the poet's grandson, contains a number of his quatrains. Unlike the quatrains of 'Umar Khay-yám, Abú Sa'íd b. Abi'l-Khayr, and other masters of this style of verse, Majdu'd-Dín's quatrains deal less with mystical and philosophical ideas than with concrete things and persons. Some are merely abusive epigrams, such as the following:

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“Born of a mother of accurséd womb
From Ganja's town to Abkház thou didst come,
Where that dog-training swineherd nurse of thine
Fed thee on dog's milk and the blood of swine.”

The following, expressing the poet's love of travel, is too ingenious in its word-plays to admit of adequate translation:

“O heaven, never turn aside my reins from wandering:
Give me my bread from Sarandíb (Ceylon), my water from Saráb:
Grant me each evening (shám) a loaf of bread from Bámiyán,
And every morning (bám) give me a draught of water from Shám
(Damascus).”*

In the two following quatrains he laments his advancing age:

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“Fiery and fluent, once my heart did hurl
Spontaneous verses forth, each verse a pearl:
Then Love, Desire and Youth were mine. These three
Not e'en in dreams I now can hope to see!”